Princess Peach: Showtime!
The game's developers, Good-Feel, have quite the pedigree with Nintendo. With games like Kirby's Epic Yarn, Yoshi's Woolly World, and Yoshi's Crafted World in their portfolio, they've become known for the incredible aesthetics they can bring to their games. I heard a few people around Showtime's release saying that they didn't bring the same level of charm this time around, but I absolutely disagree, and I think it may actually be the best thing about the game.
The theater motif pervades the entire experience, selling the idea that each level is just a stage performance. Amongst other things, large enemies are portrayed by marionettes with visible strings, special effects are created via projections on the backdrop, the set is rotated when you enter buildings so the audience can see inside, and bonus challenges take place in trap rooms beneath the stage. The new Theet characters were a little strange, but the way their light-up noses reflected their emotions reminded me of Greek drama masks, tying into the theming even further. Unfortunately, despite how impressed I was with the game's look, its gameplay felt largely middling.
The statement I hear repeated most often about Princess Peach: Showtime is that it is too easy. If you're just trying to get through the game as fast as possible, I absolutely see how that could be true. As someone who would repeat a stage until I found all of its collectible Sparkle Gems, I never had such a complaint. It actually felt pretty exciting to finish a level perfectly because I spent a lot of time redoing stages to get the few gems I missed. Instead, the problem I had was that most of Peach's ensembles didn't do much to excite me.
The bulk of the game sees Peach donning different roles in plays, replacing the kidnapped "Sparklas" that would have starred in the show and ultimately rescuing them. Each of the ensembles gives Peach different abilities and has a level designed to showcase them. For example, the ninja can disguise herself and sneak around, so she has stages designed around stealth, while the mermaid can use her singing to guide schools of fish into blocked-off areas and make them perform tasks, so she has stages designed around puzzle-solving. The variety is nice, but it truly is a mile wide and an inch deep. There tends to be a lot of repetition that slows down the three stages each ensemble boasts, and the inability to skip most dialogue and cutscenes makes returning to a stage feel even slower. With all that being said, I wouldn't call the game boring at any point. I think the gameplay just ends up being lackluster most of the time. There are a few moments that were energizing and exciting, especially during the finale, but they were far from the bulk of the experience.
Despite feeling relatively unimpressed by the gameplay, I can't get over how neat I found the theming, and I'm glad I played through the game. Collecting all of the Sparkle Gems helped to make the difficulty feel a little more in line with my skill level, but the repetition is enough of a problem for me to recommend against replaying levels, even if you miss something. There are plenty of additional challenges that become available after you beat the main story, but I felt no compulsion to try them, and I probably won't pick the game up again until my daughter is old enough to want to play it. Princess Peach: Showtime is a much better option for kids than the low-effort licensed garbage that's aimed at them, but it's not going to be nearly as engaging for an older audience unless you like the aesthetics as much as I do.
